A case of the Yips

I'm a golfer--and one of the worst diseases you can get (besides the Shanks, which I've had bouts of from time to time) is the Yips. I'm told it's a motor issue, where the muscles in your wrists fire unexpectedly, causing putts to go off line.

Well, I've got a case of the Yips and it has nothing to do with my putting stroke. It's the Business Yips--an uncontrollable spasm that overcomes me every so often. Every time I speak with a colleague about the business, I feel it coming on--a Yip.

I hear about someone who was making their numbers but got let go anyway--Yip. I "dumb down" my forecast for the first quarter yet still struggle to make it--Yip. Clients prepare me for business that will be 5-8% lower than last year-Yip. Sooner or later I'm twitching before I actually answer the phone.

And it's so insidious--an onset can occur with the most innocent conversation. One happened the other day, when I made a snide comment to someone in my organization about "well, I have to provide SOME sort of value". Normally I laugh at my own joke and go on. But then the Yip happened--"what if I can't deliver any value? What if the company doesn't value our business?" Yip, Yip, Yip.

It took me a day to get over being "spun up" over a completely innocuous comment. THAT'S when I realized I had the Yips, and no amount of rational thought would silence them. And go along with my case of the Yips I found I had a relatively serious case of the Heebie Jeebies, and my health plan doesn't cover that--I checked.

The options are plenty. Do nothing and hope I can compensate for a Yip mid-stroke. Change my grip and how I approach the business and hope I can bypass Yips altogether. See a counselor because maybe my Yips are mental, not physical.

All may work, but for the moment I'm gonna get Zen about Yips--they're not bad, or good, they just are. To attempt to "control" them is to participate in the worst kind of folly. So, I have come to some level of acceptance of my Yips. I'm chalking it up to the uncertainty of the market (easily the most uncertain I've seen in my 20+ years of working in it).

It's time to work on those things you can influence and leave the rest to someone above our pay grade. Because once you get the Yips it's really hard to get rid of them, and today's economic situation is not the place to three-putt...


Pete